The Pirate Game is a popular game often played at primary school and in many maths classes. I have made some small adjustments to make it work in the MFL classroom. I think this would make a great end of term activity!
The Pirate Game is an activity where each person in the game, on their Pirate game worksheet, places a set of symbols and values in a 7 by 7 blank grid. Therefore, you could place a 'shield' in A6, a '1000' in C4 etc etc.
I have provided two examples of how you could set up the grid to give it an MFL twist. I have provided the English on the student’s sheet and I will be calling out in Spanish, so students will have to translate the Spanish to work out the square which is been called.
The class are given the first part of the lesson to place the 49 symbols and values that appear on their sheet in the grid.
The activity then starts with the teacher selecting a grid reference, lets say ‘serían’. The class then cross off that grid reference and get whatever symbol/value is in that grid ref. If they get a value they add this to their 'cash' and this is kept as a running total throughout the game. If they get a symbol there is a particular purpose to each of these and the class are to either: put their hand up if their symbol has a 'tick' next to it or to use that symbol in the way stated below.
Here is what the student play sheet looks like.
The Symbols:
The Pirate Ship - this allows the player to 'rob' someone else's points (they must put their hand up if they get this symbol in their grid ref and will be asked by the teacher who they want to 'rob')
The Dagger - this allows the player to 'kill' someone and wipe their score down to 0 (they must put their hand up if they get this symbol in their grid ref and will be asked by the teacher who they want to 'kill')
The Present - this allows the player to give a 'present' of 1000 points to another individual (they must put their hand up if they get this symbol in their grid ref and will be asked by the teacher who they want to give the 1000 points to) I will also give the selected person a chocolate (celebration most likely)
Skull and Crossbones - this symbol allows the player to choose an entire row of the class' points to be wiped out to 0! The only way it can be stopped is if the row uses 2 defences (any combo of shields/mirrors) as a team!
Swap points - this allows the play to swap their points with another person's (they must put their hand up if they get this symbol in their grid ref and will be asked by the teacher who they want to swap points with.
Choose - this symbol allows the play to pick the next grid ref to be selected (they must put their hand up if they get this symbol so the teacher can add them to the 'choose next square/grid ref section on the IWB)
Shield - this symbol allows the player to 'block' any wrong doing to them and once this is crossed off in their grid should be drawn in the 'shield' section on their w/sheet. It can be used at any time once got but only once!
Mirror - this symbol allows the player to 'mirror' any wrong doing to them back to the person that was doing the wrong doing. Once this is crossed off in their grid it should be drawn in the 'mirror' section on their w/sheet. It can be used at any time once got but only once! The mirror allows whatever was going to happen to the individual to happen to the attacking player. i.e. if someone wanted to 'rob' me of my points and I used my mirror then I would 'rob' their points!
Bomb - if the player is unlucky enough to get this symbol in their grid ref their points will go to 0.
x2 - this symbol doubles the players current score
B (Bank) - this symbol allows any points the player has to be banked (these points are then safe for the rest of the game and cannot be stolen or wiped out!
The 'hitlist' part of the w/sheet is there for players to keep track of who has the largest amounts of cash for future 'robbings', 'killings', 'swappings' etc. This gets quite amusing at the start if you have another teacher in the room as all the kids put that teacher on the top of their 'hitlist' and inevitably the teacher is generally the first person 'killed' or 'robbed' (trust me!!).
Oh, the winner of course is the player at the end of the activity that has the highest score in both their 'bank' and their ongoing score.
You can find many versions of ‘The Pirate Game’ online and on TES, each may offer a slightly different take on the rules. This version has been adapted from Mr Collins' Maths Resources on TES.
Click on the image below to download the We Teach MFL Pirate Game for FREE, scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find it in the 'general' section.
